‘But I’m not,’ said Drake; ’I thought of going, but I have changed my mind.’  He leaned against the door of the carriage chatting incessantly to Conway, with an eye upon the waiting-room.  Once he saw the woman appear at the door, but she retired again.  Meanwhile Conway’s embarrassment increased.  He said ‘Good-bye’ to Drake at least half-a-dozen times, but on each occasion Drake had something new to say to him.  At last the whistle sounded and the train began to move.  ‘I say,’ cried Drake, running along by the carriage.  ’My luggage is in the van.  You might bring it back with you from Dover, if you will,’ and he stood watching the train until it disappeared under the shed.

Then he walked into the waiting-room.  He saw Clarice seated in a corner, and went straight to her.  She noticed that his face was white and set, and she rose with some instinct of defiance.  ’I owe you an apology,’ he said abruptly.  ’The Meteor is untrue from the first word to the last.  I mean to stay in London, and fight it; yesterday afternoon I told you lies.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Sheer lunacy,’ said he; and he got into a cab and drove to the offices of his solicitor.

CHAPTER XVIII

Meanwhile Fielding picked up the pile of letters from the table in Drake’s chambers and went down into the street.  He paused for a moment or two at the pillar-box weighing the letters in his hand.  Then he slipped them into his pocket and hurried to Mrs. Willoughby’s.

Mrs. Willoughby was moving restlessly about the drawing-room as he was shown in.  She turned impulsively towards him, holding out both hands.  ’I so hoped you would come,’ she said.  ‘Well?  You have seen him?’

‘Yes.’

‘What does he mean to do?’ she asked anxiously, taking from a chair a copy of the Meteor.

‘Nothing,’ replied Fielding.  ’He resigns his seat; he gives up his directorship; he is leaving England.’

Mrs. Willoughby’s first look was of sheer incredulity.  ‘It’s impossible!’ she exclaimed.

’I have just returned from his chambers.  He has started from Charing Cross already.’

Mrs. Willoughby sat down in the window-seat, and her look of incredulity gradually changed to one of comprehension.  ’And he took such delight in London,’ she said, with a break in her voice; ‘just like a schoolboy.’

Fielding nodded gloomily.  ‘I did my best to dissuade him,’ he said.  ’I practically told him he was a coward to run away.  But you know the man.  He had made up his mind not to face the charge.  And yet I can’t believe it’s true.’

‘Believe it!’ exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby, with a hint of something dangerously near to scorn in her voice.

‘I know, I know,’ answered Fielding.  ’Still Drake pleads guilty.  He sacrifices everything, an established position, unusual prospects—­everything, by pleading guilty.  You see, that’s the point.  He has every imaginable inducement to make him face the accusation, even if he has only the merest chance of winning, and yet he runs away.  He runs away—­Drake does.  There’s only one inference—­’